


Driving In Your Car

by Thursday_Next



Category: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths (Song)
Genre: 1980s, M/M, Unrequited Love, jukebox 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1788757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thursday_Next/pseuds/Thursday_Next
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is Friday the Seventeenth of May, 1985 and for the first time Kieran knows with absolute clarity that he is alive when for the past seventeen years, three months and six days he has been merely existing, stumbling around in the half-dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driving In Your Car

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> For zeen, who has such a great taste in music I was spoiled for choice with prompts. In the end I couldn't not pick this song, although I knew from the start that it would be impossible to do it justice. 
> 
> Huge thanks to B for betaing.

It is Friday the seventeenth of May, 1985 and for the first time Kieran knows with absolute clarity that he is alive when for the past seventeen years, three months and six days he has been merely existing, stumbling around in the half-dark. Now, there is a light at the end of the gloomy tunnel of his adolescence and the name of the light is Dean.

Kieran had been aware of Dean’s existence, of course. In a town like Rushover, everyone knows everybody, or so they say. Of course nobody ever really looks further than the twitch of their net curtains. Nobody really knows anybody else at all. Certainly nobody really knows Kieran, because he’s never really wanted them to. The schoolyard is a dead zone of silence, jacket hoods pulled up likes snails in their shells, everyone curled around their solitary pursuits of fags and contraband magazines, the grey stillness punctuated by the occasional shout from the playing field where two-thirds of the male population of Our Lady of Lourdes expend their stale breath kicking a football around for the duration. 

Dean belongs to the world beyond the high chain link fence that keeps Kieran and his classmates hemmed in. He has a car (an Austin Allegro), a part-time job (in Woolworths) and a girlfriend (Pearl). Kieran covets precisely none of these things. But there is an air of freedom, of self-possession about Dean that he can’t help but envy. He seems so painfully alive in a way that Kieran wonders whether he would ever dare to be. 

 

It’s raining and the number nine is bloody late as usual. Kieran weighs up standing here like a div in the downpour or trudging home in it instead.

The car pulls up and Kieran freezes. The door opens and the girl in the front passenger seat regards him impassively, feet on the dashboard, jaw working solidly on her stick of gum. Her hair is so blonde as to be almost white and her name is Pearl. Kieran doesn’t think either the hair colour or the name are the ones she was born with.

“Well, are you getting in?” Dean calls across her. His hair sticks up in defiant spikes on his head, making Kieran run his hand self-consciously through his own mousy mop, growing wetter by the second. He hesitates. He can’t think what they want with him, these impossibly self-assured people. But he can’t imagine saying no, either, so he shrugs and climbs in, squeezing onto the narrow back seat next to a long-haired boy who grunts a non-verbal greeting.

“What’s your name?” Dean asks, taking his eyes off the road to look over his shoulder at him. Kieran tells him. He shudders to think what his mum would say about Dean’s driving. Dean’s left hand settles on Pearl’s leg. “Got anywhere to be?”

Kieran thinks of his house, his mum, and Richard and his bloody Friday fish dinners and no, he can’t think of anywhere he’s got to be.

*

Dean introduces him to the noble and ancient art of shoplifting. Dean is not so much a poacher turned gamekeeper as one who doesn’t see why on earth he can’t be both, as long as he’s good enough not to get caught. Besides, he laughs, it’s practically doing his employers at Woolies a service if he takes a knock out of Boots’ profits, isn’t it?

Kieran had nicked a Marathon bar from the corner shop once when he was nine and suffered agonies of guilt for years after. He stands awkwardly looking at the week’s new releases wondering if this is the reason they’d picked him up, to be their patsy while they leg it with their stolen goods. His fingers linger wistfully over the cover of The Cocteau Twins _Treasure_ , incongruously nestling on the shelf next to Wham!’s latest tape, trying to not to think of prison while Pearl and the boy with the hair eye up the perfume counter.

Fingers settle on his shoulder, pressing against the skin of his neck where he’s loosened the collar of his school shirt. He flinches instinctively, sure its the manager and he’s already called the police, but instead he looks up to see Dean grinning crookedly down at him, an unmistakable light in his eyes. 

“Come on,” he says, and they saunter out as though they were only ever window shopping, browsers with nothing to hide. 

“Christ,” Pearl snorts, looking over at him disdainfully as they walk back towards the car park, “There’s guilt coming off you in waves.”

“That’s a Catholic upbringing for you,” Kieran says, and Dean laughs and claps him on the shoulder. Kieran thinks he can still feel the sting of it long after the pressure is withdrawn. 

The sky has dimmed to a dusky grey by the time they pull up outside Kieran’s house and he feels a pang of misgiving, knowing he’s going to be in trouble. 

“Thanks for the lift,” he says awkwardly as he fumbles with the door handle. Dean laughs as though he’s made a joke, and only belatedly does Kieran realise why. 

“Any time,” Dean says, casual as you like, and Kieran tries to pretend the words don’t fill him with a stupid hope. “Here, wait up.” He winds the window down and Kieran comes over, wary. Dean’s shoving something at him through the open window, a cassette. Kieran almost drops it when he realises what it is. “Saw you looking at it in the shop,” Dean says, with an embarrassed sort of shrug. “Later, yeah?” he says, speeding off before Dean can thank him or protest. He shoves the tape up his school jumper and heads inside.

 

Things have been worse since his mum and Richard got married. They’d promised it wouldn’t change anything, but of course it has. Now instead of forced jollity over Sunday lunch its every bloody night of the week. Except that now Richard no longer feels like he has to get Kieran on his side, and keeps picking at him over every little thing, from an untucked shirt or an unfinished dinner to Kieran’s taste in music. He keeps talking to him about sport and cars, and seems genuinely bewildered when Kieran expresses no interest in either although, really, Kieran thinks he ought to have figured out by now that he couldn’t care less about Nigel Mansell or Alain Prost or axles or chicanes. 

He knows why Cassie was in such a hurry to move out. He hates her for it a little bit but he misses her more fiercely than he could ever have imagined. 

 

Richard’s in fine form tonight, telling Kieran how much he’s worried his mother coming home at this hour.

“The bus was late,” Kieran offers, which is after all not untrue. And then, because Dean and the Cocteau twins and the thrill of getting away with it have given him an extra ounce of courage, “It’s nothing to do with you anyway, why don’t you shut up?”

Richard bellows about not being spoken to like that in his own house, his mother banishes him to his room and Kieran knows that he doesn’t belong here, not any more.

 

*

After a miserable weekend, school is almost a reprieve. From the fire back out to the frying pan at any rate. Richard had spent the weekend making not very subtle hints about layabouts not pulling their weight and rent and board owing. His mum had stuck up for him for once, saying, _”He’s got his A-levels, Richard.”_ A-levels are his last defence against the rot. He clutches his books to his chest and feels a new appreciation for school, even Geography, where Mr. Cooper throws chalk at boys who aren’t paying enough attention.

Kieran doesn’t expect a repeat of last Friday but as he leaves the school gates he hears the honk of a horn and there they are, and not for the last time.

It’s not every day and it’s not always the same. They mostly go to car parks but sometimes its playgrounds or just parking up by the dell and hanging around under the railway bridge. Sometimes some other kids are there with their cars and if anyone’s up for it there might be a race but more often than not they just hang out drinking and smoking and playing music. 

He learns that Pearl’s real name is Sharon, and that everyone calls her Pearl because she and Dean have been together so long. She jokes that she’s already changed her name for him, as good as marriage. But Kieran sees her with other boys, other men, sharing a toke or standing a little too close and he wonders. She spells it out for him, “Pearl and Dean, yeah, like the cinema thing,” and she sings the tune, like maybe he’s a little bit slow. Or maybe she’s wary of him, somehow, because Dean picked him up out of nowhere and now he’s always hanging around. Maybe because he’s on to her, or maybe just maybe she’s on to him.

Because Kieran’s aim always is to be close to Dean. It’s not because he’s the ringleader or because he nicked him a tape that first time. Not just because he’s got dark hair or green eyes or because he laughs at his jokes. Definitely not because Dean is always ruffling his hair or thumping him on the back or otherwise touching him, infuriating and always too much. More because he thinks he’s going to stop breathing every time he stretches his arms above his head and his t-shirt rides up to reveal a sliver of tanned skin, because of the way he will look at him sometimes and feel that Dean _gets_ him in a way that he’s never _let_ anyone get him before. 

 

*  
One time they knock off Boots, Pearl and her friend Julie set their sights on the make-up counter. A handbag the size of Wales filled with lipstick and mascara all for the sake of some party they’re all going to on Saturday. Julie wants to be a make-up artist and somehow Kieran ends up being volunteered for her to practise on. He’s new enough to the group that he doesn’t quite dare to say no; he feels that some of them barely tolerate his presence among them as it is. He doesn’t want them to think he’s boring. Besides after a couple of cans it seems like a laugh. 

It doesn’t seem so funny when Richard opens the door and he realises he hasn’t got round to wiping it off.

“No son of mine is going around with make-up on like a poof,” is Richard’s observation.

“Bloody good job I’m not your son then,” Kieran counters. Richard’s skin is flushed purple and there’s a vein in his neck throbbing with anger. Kieran doesn’t think he would dare hit him, but he decides to leg it up the stairs before that theory can be put to the test.

He scrubs the lipstick off and seethes with resentment against Richard, his mum, Pearl and Julie, even Dean. After all, they hadn’t invited him to that bloody party, any of them.

He can hear his mum and Richard arguing, about his upbringing, his friends and even his posters of David Bowie. She’s been too soft on him, Richard says. He blames the boy’s father. Those new friends of his, she counters, always hanging around with those delinquents, school work suffering. No responsibility, Richard says, never had a job. Never had a girlfriend. 

Kieran wonders whether Richard would prefer it if he brought home some nice Catholic girl, never mind the johnnies, up the duff and down the aisle by nineteen, like Mrs. Bradshaw’s Judith over the road.

He lies down on his bed and closes his eyes. It occurs to him that although wearing a bit of make-up doesn’t make him a poof, the way he imagines Dean’s hands on him and finds himself staring at his collarbone wishing he could lick it probably do. 

 

*

Dean doesn’t knock like normal people. Kieran hears the honk of a horn at nine thirty on Saturday evening and looks out of the window to see the blue Austin Allegro there on the pavement. He races out of the living room where the three of them are sitting watching _Bergerac_ , slamming the door behind him before either his mum or Richard can ask where he’s going.

“Get in then,” Dean says. There’s a flush to his cheeks, anger or drink or both. He stares resolutely ahead and doesn’t look at Kieran. 

“All right.”

Kieran climbs into the car. For the first time, the front seat. His knees press together in a kind of nervous anticipation.

He doesn’t ask where Pearl is. Or who she’s with. Everyone’s heard the rumours. What matters is she’s not here and Kieran is. Dean flicks the radio on, turns the volume up too loud. 

Dean drives too fast, skidding round corners. Kieran wonders how much he’s had to drink already. He wonders whether they will even live long enough to get wherever they’re going. 

They drive around aimlessly for about half an hour before pulling up in the corner of the George Street car park, away from the street lights and Dean kills the engine.

“Got any cigs?” Dean asks, too loud in the sudden silence.

“Sure,” Kieran says, his voice sounds scratchy and thin and he wishes it didn’t.

It takes him three attempts to get it lit, hands shaking. He doesn’t know why he didn’t just hand Dean the lighter to do it for himself. He hands it over, staring in a sort of fascination at the way Dean’s lips wrap around the very thing that was in his own mouth just seconds before. He lights a second and takes a nervous drag. Neither of them speak.

And then Dean’s hand is on his thigh, a sudden warm pressure. Kieran starts and drops the cigarette. 

“Sorry,” he says, feeling the whole embarrassing weight of his virginity hampering his undeniable desire. “I...”

“Leave it,” Dean says, flicking his own cigarette out of the window. His thumb presses against the seam in Kieran’s jeans.

Kieran’s breath hitches. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more, and is terrified the offer is going to be withdrawn once Dean clocks how hopelessly inexperienced he is.

But Dean’s hand slides higher. 

“Alright?” Dean says, leaning in so his lips brush Kieran’s jaw.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Alright, yeah.”

 

*

Dean puts the radio on as they drive back. The windows are fogged up so he winds them down.

Through the underpass the radio cuts out and there’s nothing but the dim roar of cars passing them in the other direction. Now, Kieran thinks, say something, anything, tell him -- but then the radio crackles back to life and the moment is gone. 

Every inch closer to home he loses something. He doesn’t want this night to end. He doesn’t want to go back. It was bad enough before, but now he knows it will be unbearable. 

Suddenly there are lights ahead of them; a lorry. The car swerves and lurches to the side. 

For a moment Kieran thinks _this is it_ , that they’re both going to die here, together, and for that moment it doesn’t seem so terrible a thing. _Let it come,_ he thinks.

But they find themselves travelling on, angry honks from the lorry driver fading into the distance and Kieran feels a sudden, sure glimpse of the future. 

On Monday Dean will pick him up after school as usual. Pearl will be there, the two of them back together again. Nobody will mention the cigarette burn on the front passenger seat.

Soon, Kieran will get out of here, out of that house, out of this dead-end town. He will do things with his life and meet people, and an awkward mutual handjob in the front seat of a Austin Allegro with a teenage delinquent won’t seem like such an earth-shatteringly romantic prospect. 

But he knows, too, that this night and this feeling will linger in the corners of his memory, a light that will dim but never entirely go out.


End file.
